Boxing: gunther fishgold

Manager Gunther Fishgold was so displeased with what he perceived was a distinct lack of passion on Ayi Bruce's part in his Saturday fight with Filipino Dennis Laurente on the Pacquiao-Marquez undercard, he told NYFightBlog he will no longer work with the Ghana-born fighter from Albany.

"He fought a very uninspired fight," the manager said of the 25-year-old welterweight who was stopped in round seven. "And he quit on the canvas. He wasn't hurt and I was embarrassed about his performance. Laurente was nothing special. That's boxing."

Might he cut Bruce loose?

"Yup," he said. "Too much time and effort and money for such a lackluster performance. I cannot work with guys that quit. He's a nice guy, but boxing is performance-based and I have a reputation as well. I'm known for having gate-keepers and he didn't perform like that."

The best laid plans of Ghana-born Albany resident Ayi Bruce went off the rails at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas Saturday night. We chatted with Bruce's manager, Gunther Fishgold, on Friday. He seemed confident his kid would handle Filipino vet Dennis Laurente in a welterweight bout. He thought that his fighter deserved a spot in our NYC P4P Top 20, and might get a shot at Andre Berto, or a Berto-level boxer. But the 25-year-old Bruce got handled, and handed a KO loss. It was his second straight stoppage loss.

Bruce drops to 20-5, while the 34-year-old Laurente, whom Fishgold had thought was a product of keen matchmaking, rises to 41-4-5.

We reached out to Fishgold for his thoughts and will share when we hear back.

So you'll recall that Joshua Clottey is slotted No. 6 in our NYC P4P list. Well, we have a challenge, compliments of manager Gunther Fishgold, the Albany-based dealmaker who manager Ghana-born welterweight Ayi Bruce. Bruce, fighting out of Albany, fights tomorrow night on the Pacquiao-Marquez III undercard at the MGM in Las Vegas. He'll take on 40-4-5 Filipino Dennis Laurente.

Fishgold told NYFightBlog that he thinks Bruce should be in the NYC P4P Top 20, and would quite possible beat Clottey, also a Ghana native, if they clashed. The 20-4 Bruce toils at 147, but Clottey is now campaigning at 154, so that clash is unlikely to occur.

Fishgold said Bruce is a boxer/puncher, has a big jab, looks more like a 154-pounder and isn't unlike Ghana notable Ike Quartey. Laurente, he's not as sure about. Fishgold couldn't find even a second of video on the guy. "But I expect a win tomorrow. The guys he's squeaked out a win against we would blow these guys out."

The manager's specialty is "rehab" fighters, boxers who may have been mismanaged or been on a streak of bad luck. Fishgold, whose great grandpa "Kid Herman" Schneider was a solid pug in the early 1900s, oversees Emmanuel Lucero, a 26-7-1 Mexican who fights Diego Magdaleno (20-0) at the Mandalay Bay tonight.

"I have fruit and nut manufacturing plants and do import/export, so I travel to these countries and have a good feel for the different cultures," Fishgold said. "That's a big part in getting trust and signing people."

If Bruce wins, he'll have that much of a better case to enter our Top 20 ... and, the manager said, land a big bout against a name guy. "If a guy like Andre Berto thinks he needs a tuneup, we have no problem beating guys like that. That would be an ideal fight; he's tailor-made for us."

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Michael Woods

Michael Woods has covered boxing since 1990. He is the editor of thesweetscience.com, a board member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and will be a contributing writer at ESPN The Magazine starting in January. As an aspiring fighter in the mid-'90s, he learned to apppreciate the difficulty of the sport.